Day 40: Barcelona

In Andorra: Pas de la Casa

This is where Le Tour de France goes

I made it to the top of Port d'Envalira

The capital: Andorra la Vella

 View to Coll de Nargó

In the morning: Not far to the final destination

 Barcelona - seen from Serra de Collserola

Famous La Rambla leads from Plaça de Catalunya to the harbor.

New Barcelona - on my way to the airport.

Day 37: Pyrénées-Orientales

Through the Camargue to Aigues-Mortes

I reached the Mediterranean at Le Grau-du-Roi

following the Canal du Rhône à Sète ...

... to the lighthouse

 Tourism at La Grand-Motte (exists since 1974)

I am now following the beaches of la Grande Bleue

Following La Canal du Midi pour un petite peu

From Narbonne, there is a small route to Ile Set Lucie / Port-la-Nouvelle

Little windy here - reminds me a bit of of Patagonia

At Leucate, close to Perpignan, I could see the Pyrénées (Pyrenees)

 I am climbing

Day 32 Arles, France

This post will cover my way from Rieti, in the North of Rome, to Arles in the South of France. 

After two days of rain in the Apennin mountsins, I continued east. 

Riding the old Italian salt road, the mountains are not that high. 

Finally, I made it to the Adriatic Sea. 

I needed to cross Italy as I wanted to visit  San Marino, the second new country on this journey. 

Again, it was raining a lot towards this litte country, that is completely surrounded by Italy.

Always welcome on rainy episodes, the destination is located on a hill. 

View from up there.

Next stop was Firenze, where I visited a good friend, Chistine. She runs a nice B&B "Il Mulo".

We spent two great days, I relaxed and saw a little of Firence. 

I had chosen the way though the hilly backcountry to get to Genua. Even so, this did meant more climing, I like the ride   like that. 

Though the route of the Giro d'Italia

I made my way to France. 

I did a quick lap at the Formula 1 Grand Prix track in 10:42. 

The Côte d'Azur is beautiful, I made my way quite quick (with tons of tailwind :) through Cannes, Nice and Marseille (the latter I liked the most). 

Now, I am in Arles, which yesterday was sunny, 

but today convinced me with bad weather for a restday.

Day 17: Rieti, Abruzzo

The two weeks were full of sunshine - weather for the sandals. I followed the westcoast with all the ups and downs - just made to give the cyclist these great views. 

I use the normal roads (not the motorways, not these very small side roads). Traffic is somerimes intensive, but less bad as I thought. Especially at these narrow roads of the Amalfi coast. 

I tried the Magaretha Pizza in Neaples, at 'L'Antica da Michele' in the place where it's been invented (they say). 

From the pizza to the beer. My First 1000 came up:

Another 250 km further North on the coast, I reached Rome, made my way over the river Tiber

to the home of papa Francesco, the Vatican. 

Considering the hotel prices and that I had been a couple of times in incredible Rome before, I left the next day and rode into the Appennin mountains in order to cross over to the Adrian coast. 

The sun had tanken a nap and the sky gave me rain and hail instead. 

I am talking a break in Rieti at the moment. 

Day 2: Sun over Sicily

My friend from yesterday, the rain, was only seen in the first half an hour today. Then came the sun. Nice.

The northern coast oft Sicily is in princible flat. It is a coast and the water reaches land at 0. All the time and everywhere. It's these little ups and downs close to the water that makes the difference. 

I like to pedal here. The power in my legs is not that Great at the moment, but it is getting better every day...

For the record: Santa Flavio to Castel du Tusa - 83km

Day 1: riding in the rain

The alarm went in at 3:30am. Oh yes, I was booked in a pretty early flight. 

This turned out to ne a pretty good thing as the Italien air traffic controller Startelf their strike at 10 o'clock. 

Fron the airport Palermo it is possible to pedal mostly in side roads to Palermo 

The city, like all bigger cities are hart to cross - no signs tell  the right way. I found a cheap B&B in Santa Vlabio. 

After a small nap, the sind came and this is what I belive will bei tomorrow too. 

Caffee is my elecir. 

Route - Map

So what ist the planned route of this trip?

The reason for it is that my legs needed the road again. The route is caused by my wish to see the southern european small countries of Vatican, San Marino, Monaco and Andorra. That gave the skeleton of the trip. After some small adaptions to what I now think may be nice, that is what the planned routes looks like:

Palermo - Barcelona - as planned before knowing what will come...

I guess this will be around 4.000km, so at least 2 month of Southern Europe!

Now I have to do the last preparations and go to bed early as the my alarm is set for 3:40 tomorrow morning.